How GoDaddy Backorder work exactly?

[Sam Ozborn]

hollas to everybody
i spent all day gathering info on the subject and now have a pure mess in my head wondering why there is nothing about it on gd site exept one paragraph in tos which says nothing defenite and shady stuff in faq.

im talking here only about backordering domains that were registered by gd

am i get this right?
the way backorders worked before:
only ONE person can backorder. if someone place backorder it makes domain go to the auction for EVERYONE and person who placed original backorder may had no idea about that. wow.

the way it work now:
everyone can backorder then it goes to auction for only those who backordered. if only one person placed backorder he/she get domain with no auction at all, right?

the way it was before seems like you better not use it at all also make no sense. and that make me feel scared to use it now becouse i dont see any official info about it or explanations to make things clear. contrary their faq sounds like they still do it old way

If your domain goes to auction, we may use your backorder cost to place the opening bid on the domain. If no one else places a bid on the name, we capture and register the domain for you, subject to the rights of the previous owner. If someone does bid on the domain, you receive an outbid notice and are given the chance to place a higher bid or move your backorder to another name.

anyways, i want 2 domains
first one expired about 2 weeks ago and now parked on gd default page for expired domains. it says

Notice: This domain name expired on 08/25/2009 and is pending renewal or deletion
This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com.

whois shows that gd reserved this domain for the next year on the next day it was expired so now it belongs to gd i guess

Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientRenewProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 26-aug-2009
Creation Date: 25-aug-2008
Expiration Date: 25-aug-2010

this domain is not on auction yet but i searched for similar domains at gd auction that expired about month before my domain did and now they offered for 5 bucks "buy now". they also reserved by gd for the next year.

so my questions,
how long is "pending renewal or deletion" period? is it same period that called grace period in tos and lasts 12 days? gd staff replied to my mail calling it "0 to 45 day grace period" how to understand this?
what happens after that? auction anyway? if there were backorders - private auction, if no backorders - 5 bucks open for everyone auction, something like that? is it called redemption period in tos and lasts 30 days?
how i may see how much backorders domain have if any? or i have to wait until auction date to find out how many competitors i have?

and what should i do in case of this domain? backorder or not?


second domain id like to be mine expired about month ago and now has redemption status with no parking page and gd didn't reserved it for the next year so what gonna happen? gd gonna let it to be dropped? i dont know if it was placed at auction or not but right now its not on auction. what i should do in this case? backorder with gd or not? i heard they suck on catching drops even their own drops. how is it now? does they have any advantages in catching their own domains? common sense tells me they could catch without even dropping it just renew it before its too late. or they gonna lose it?

any input is much desired